Increased capacity might mean they HAVE to revamp top 100 list

[Guest]

So, I got stranded somewhere in RL today....long story, and basically irrelevant, but whilst waiting to be 'rescued' and having nothing else to do, I turned to my thoughts. Yes, I know......dangerous thing to do, Carrie, especially if you have my thought processes

Anyway, I got to thinking.....with what was posted on the blog and the Crash the EA house thing, it struck me. I've been sort of campaigning for a revamp of the current top 100 list, to be counted some other way than VH, since to me this has very little to nothing to do with the quality of a given house or host. It occured to me while thinking of this proposed raise in max capacity of a lot, and letting the house owner determine what the house's cap will be when they open it, that doing this would almost *necessitate* the revamp I've been hoping for all along. If not, then houses that have their max cap set at 200, for instance, will always be at a greater advantage to those with a max capacity of 60, for instance, even if both houses stay 100% full for the same amount of time, because the current system isn't based on percentage full, its based on the total number of hours unique guests spend there. But if they did make it based on percentages, then if both houses stayed at 100% capacity, no matter what number max capacity equalled, they'd each have a better chance at equal footing and fair competition. It still would not be perfect to me, because I don't think VH should be the central issue, but if they are determined not to give us rating systems because of the potential for exploitation, then calculating the VH using percentages rather than actual time seemed to be more fair to me.

Sorry if I've lost anybody with this description...I'll try to be more algebraic in clarification if anybody wants it, I just wondered if anybody else who's been able to participate in the discussion on the blog (I still can't) has thought of this....so far I hadn't seen anybody say anything similiar, but I might have missed it. Thoughts?

 

[imported_Phoenix_Rising]

Mhm, I agree, I'd like to see a different sort of way to determine rankings. You mentioned they may not want to change the system due to exploitation, but in all reality, the current system is being exploited 24 hours a day, every day. Because of this, we should all brainstorm up different ways the charts can be tweaked.

 

[Guest]

I don't have any opinions either way as to whether they SHOULD or SHOULD NOT change the Top 100's...but in reply to whether or not the increased property limit would corner them into doing so: I don't think it would. Technically if everybody had the option to increase max guests there is no unfair advantage...everybody has that option.

 

[Guest]

weren't the lists going to be disabled or removed in eal?

 

[turtleface]

I agree that once max capacity is raised, they'll need to channge the way the top 100 is decided...
If it's done by percentage instead, they'll need to do something to prevent people setting their capacity really low, and keeping just a few people there make it constantly 100%.

Also, with raised capacities, we don't want to nd up with one or two houses with 50 people in them, and all the rest empty, which could easily happen... even as it is now, it seems to be a very limited number of open lots with many people in there. I think they should decrease the amount of people needed to reach full payout and 118% skilling, so people will have more choices with where they visit when they want to skill and make money. I'm so tired of having to visit ugly lots that i don't like if i want to make any money or skill at a decent speed.

 

[Guest]

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I'm so tired of having to visit ugly lots that i don't like if i want to make any money or skill at a decent speed.

[/ QUOTE ]

Word. To host 30 sims you need to sacrifice a lot to provide for all the objects and room. Results are little boxed-in areas for showers and beds and open space with heaps of symmetric rows of skilling objects. And of course an open area with all the rare objects of the owners &amp; roomies in a big row as show-off.
Again and again and again. No decent 2nd floors ever, as that lags too much.

Other than that I must say the top lots are often top lots because the owners and roomies are awesome hosts and generally very nice people knowing how to take care of us visitors but I so wish a top 10 lot owner would be able to go crazy on design and not have its framerate drop to zero.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I don't have any opinions either way as to whether they SHOULD or SHOULD NOT change the Top 100's...but in reply to whether or not the increased property limit would corner them into doing so: I don't think it would. Technically if everybody had the option to increase max guests there is no unfair advantage...everybody has that option.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, but the whole point of letting people choose their own max is because some people cannot handle houses as big as others.....so therefore the unfair advantage would come in that some people's machines are more powerhorsed than the others, which in some cases can be fixed and some cases not. I just think it's a bad idea to institute something that has a potential to create an unfair advantage from jumpstreet, if there's any way to prevent it.

While Dave is on the computer this morning I am going to try to gather my thoughts enough to create a Wiki page when I get back on, and will be happy to incorporate any additions/suggestions anybody has that doesn't feel comfortable posting them on the Wiki page I create. I'll link back to the page here when I create it

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

If it's done by percentage instead, they'll need to do something to prevent people setting their capacity really low, and keeping just a few people there make it constantly 100%

[/ QUOTE ]

THAT is a very good point, one I had not considered.....I guess I just assumed (big mistake, heh) that the lowest possibility to select would be what it is now, 35, and maybe it will be....I dunno but if not that's a good point to bring up, and in fact you might mention that in Luc's thread on the blog about reconfiguring the max capacity. I would, but I can't due to lost login info.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Also, with raised capacities, we don't want to nd up with one or two houses with 50 people in them, and all the rest empty, which could easily happen... even as it is now, it seems to be a very limited number of open lots with many people in there

[/ QUOTE ]

That's the primary reason to have one city instead of 10. We don't have enough player base to spread over 10 cities, even if the population reached 10x what it is now (which would be wonderful).

Not sure what you mean by 'ugly' lots, but what's always gotten me is that it's impossible for lots to be varied because there's only a few choices in the top end greening stuff. I haven't gotten to experiment much with CC, but it would be awesome if CC would allow us to tweak the stats on even a premade item for our own use, not to be distributed to other sims since it's not really our creation other than the tweaked stats. I too am sick of seeing lots with Morrocan furniture, and I *like* blue. It would be great, for instance if somebody with a 70's heart could tweak the bubble chairs to equal the comfort of the Morrocan, I think.

 

[Laverne]

Instead of having a 'Top 100' list, why not have a directory? House owners can put information about their lot in a directory and the directory can be organized into categories/alphabetically.

For example if I were looking for a creativity lot, I would click "creativity" and bring up an alphabetical list of lots that provide that skill. As far as shops go, just list them alphabetically.

Just an idea.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Other than that I must say the top lots are often top lots because the owners and roomies are awesome hosts and generally very nice people knowing how to take care of us visitors but I so wish a top 10 lot owner would be able to go crazy on design and not have its framerate drop to zero

[/ QUOTE ]

Part of the issue there is that TSO has spent so long gearing toward the low-end spectrum, those with dinosaur machines and/or dialup, and probably is also operating with sub-standard server equipment up against what the high end games have, so the two things combined make alot of lag when anybody does anything anywhere near complex or sophisticated. MAYBE *fingers crossed* if TSO gets more 'in the black' over the next 6 months EA will see it fiscally advisable to upgrade their server equipment so that those of us not on dial-up will notice a significant drop in lag. With the new graphics changes, from the post I've read here alot of people on the low-end spectrum are going to opt not to upgrade, and hopefully the new players coming in will already meet the minimum specs of the NEW game, not the old one, so that EA will see that its' consumers of the game can now handle more stuff. Maybe wishful thinking on my part, but I remain optimistic.

 

[B Jordan]

People who have dinosaur PC's.... That's their fault.

Sure it costs money to build a PC but this game was designed for computer's roughly 5 years ago. It's time to upgrade if your PC is that old.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Instead of having a 'Top 100' list, why not have a directory? House owners can put information about their lot in a directory and the directory can be organized into categories/alphabetically.

For example if I were looking for a creativity lot, I would click "creativity" and bring up an alphabetical list of lots that provide that skill. As far as shops go, just list them alphabetically.

Just an idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep. That idea has been brought up before, with the 'con' argument being that eliminating the rankings and the top 100 list takes away the competitive factor that so many people enjoy...which is great that they have that to set as a goal and I don't really want to take that away from people, but at least it would be useful to have the ranking system but only show the lots that were online at a given time on the list.....so say you had this:

#1: Charisma House (Online)
#2: Logic House (Online)
#3 Body House (OFFLINE)
#4: Creativity House (OFFLINE)
#5 Cooking House (Online
#6 Mechanical House (OFFLINE)
#7. Creativity House (Online)
8. Charisma House (OFFLINE)
9. Mechanical House (Online
10. Body House (Online)
11. Cooking House (OFFLINE)
12. Creativty House (Online)

then if the offline houses didn't show the top 100 list, complete with rankings, would look like:

1. Charisma House
2. Logic House
5. Cooking House
7. Creativity House
9. Mechanical House
10. Body House
12. Creativity House

etc. with 10 houses showing before anybody had to scroll down. The other biggest beef/flaw with the system is that people complain that only 10 houses show, and nobody scrolls down past.....but if online only houses showed, while people could still earn their rankings, then that number 12 spot in the 2nd example would still show in the initial window, without anybody needing to scroll, thus giving them a higher likelihood of making it into the actual top 10 rankings. There also seems like there would be a way that people could adjust the number of houses they wanted to show at once, to make the window expandable so they could see 20 houses open at a time if they wanted to rather than just 10. I'd say just decrease the font of the names in the list, but I know from the screen res discussion that there are alot of visually challenged people that don't use magnifiers that wouldn't like that.

 

[B Jordan]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Instead of having a 'Top 100' list, why not have a directory? House owners can put information about their lot in a directory and the directory can be organized into categories/alphabetically.

For example if I were looking for a creativity lot, I would click "creativity" and bring up an alphabetical list of lots that provide that skill. As far as shops go, just list them alphabetically.

Just an idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep. That idea has been brought up before, with the 'con' argument being that eliminating the rankings and the top 100 list takes away the competitive factor that so many people enjoy...which is great that they have that to set as a goal and I don't really want to take that away from people, but at least it would be useful to have the ranking system but only show the lots that were online at a given time on the list.....so say you had this:

#1: Charisma House (Online)
#2: Logic House (Online)
#3 Body House (OFFLINE)
#4: Creativity House (OFFLINE)
#5 Cooking House (Online
#6 Mechanical House (OFFLINE)
#7. Creativity House (Online)
8. Charisma House (OFFLINE)
9. Mechanical House (Online
10. Body House (Online)
11. Cooking House (OFFLINE)
12. Creativty House (Online)

then if the offline houses didn't show the top 100 list, complete with rankings, would look like:

1. Charisma House
2. Logic House
5. Cooking House
7. Creativity House
9. Mechanical House
10. Body House
12. Creativity House

etc. with 10 houses showing before anybody had to scroll down. The other biggest beef/flaw with the system is that people complain that only 10 houses show, and nobody scrolls down past.....but if online only houses showed, while people could still earn their rankings, then that number 12 spot in the 2nd example would still show in the initial window, without anybody needing to scroll, thus giving them a higher likelihood of making it into the actual top 10 rankings. There also seems like there would be a way that people could adjust the number of houses they wanted to show at once, to make the window expandable so they could see 20 houses open at a time if they wanted to rather than just 10. I'd say just decrease the font of the names in the list, but I know from the screen res discussion that there are alot of visually challenged people that don't use magnifiers that wouldn't like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't I just name my house AAAAAAAAAAAAHouseofSkill to be number one? Or however many A's I needed.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Not sure what you mean by 'ugly' lots, but what's always gotten me is that it's impossible for lots to be varied because there's only a few choices in the top end greening stuff. I haven't gotten to experiment much with CC, but it would be awesome if CC would allow us to tweak the stats on even a premade item for our own use, not to be distributed to other sims since it's not really our creation other than the tweaked stats. I too am sick of seeing lots with Morrocan furniture, and I *like* blue. It would be great, for instance if somebody with a 70's heart could tweak the bubble chairs to equal the comfort of the Morrocan, I think.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think they were referring to the furnishings as much as the building, landscaping and such. Most of which has to be sacrificed to property limits on a large active lot. And the more capacity that is allowed, the worse it will get.

I do not know how the property limit is parsed out....but if walls, windows, stairs, doors, fences and plants could be a seperate calculation, from people and objects, it would significantly improve the variation in lot design. As is is now, every skill &amp; money house is 'outdoors' with a few plants and 'rugs', and all of the fun, creative, interesting house designs are in other catagories.

For me, the 'poor' starter lots were more creative and interesting, than they became, after they started getting some money and enlarging them to size 8 parking lots with furnishings.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

Instead of having a 'Top 100' list, why not have a directory? House owners can put information about their lot in a directory and the directory can be organized into categories/alphabetically.

For example if I were looking for a creativity lot, I would click "creativity" and bring up an alphabetical list of lots that provide that skill. As far as shops go, just list them alphabetically.

Just an idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep. That idea has been brought up before, with the 'con' argument being that eliminating the rankings and the top 100 list takes away the competitive factor that so many people enjoy...which is great that they have that to set as a goal and I don't really want to take that away from people, but at least it would be useful to have the ranking system but only show the lots that were online at a given time on the list.....so say you had this:

#1: Charisma House (Online)
#2: Logic House (Online)
#3 Body House (OFFLINE)
#4: Creativity House (OFFLINE)
#5 Cooking House (Online
#6 Mechanical House (OFFLINE)
#7. Creativity House (Online)
8. Charisma House (OFFLINE)
9. Mechanical House (Online
10. Body House (Online)
11. Cooking House (OFFLINE)
12. Creativty House (Online)

then if the offline houses didn't show the top 100 list, complete with rankings, would look like:

1. Charisma House
2. Logic House
5. Cooking House
7. Creativity House
9. Mechanical House
10. Body House
12. Creativity House

etc. with 10 houses showing before anybody had to scroll down. The other biggest beef/flaw with the system is that people complain that only 10 houses show, and nobody scrolls down past.....but if online only houses showed, while people could still earn their rankings, then that number 12 spot in the 2nd example would still show in the initial window, without anybody needing to scroll, thus giving them a higher likelihood of making it into the actual top 10 rankings. There also seems like there would be a way that people could adjust the number of houses they wanted to show at once, to make the window expandable so they could see 20 houses open at a time if they wanted to rather than just 10. I'd say just decrease the font of the names in the list, but I know from the screen res discussion that there are alot of visually challenged people that don't use magnifiers that wouldn't like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wouldn't I just name my house AAAAAAAAAAAAHouseofSkill to be number one? Or however many A's I needed.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, not in this example because like I said the houses would still be ranked by some earned ranking system, not alphabetically. It was suggested that the list be alphabetical, and the reason you just listed here was the main reason I was opposed to it, coupled with the loss of what people consider a primary goal, having a top ranking house. I've suggested in the past that the rankings be based on something else besides VH though, but the question usually becomes what could it be, because almost everything, including VH, has ways of being exploited. I dont want to remove the ranking system entirely though, because doing so would take away a major game goal for alot of folks, which could result in their quitting if they achieve all the other goals on their list and there's nothing else to do, and let's face it, this game has a finite amount of possible goals to start with for the goal-oriented person. People gag when its paralleled with SL, but actually this game is only a little less open-ended than SL is. There were two reasons that turned me totally off of SL.....the level of pornographic and/or 'adult' (using the term loosely) material and misconduct, and the open-endedness of it....there was nothing to do if you didn't have a CC-centered mind except fly around the worlds (I did like that part, heh) and land at various places and chat. That was it. TSO is only a few goals away from that, so I don't see taking away one of those half dozen as being good for the game, ya know?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I do not know how the property limit is parsed out....but if walls, windows, stairs, doors, fences and plants could be a seperate calculation, from people and objects, it would significantly improve the variation in lot design. As is is now, every skill &amp; money house is 'outdoors' with a few plants and 'rugs', and all of the fun, creative, interesting house designs are in other catagories.

[/ QUOTE ]

I take it you don't like outdoor-themed lots

. I think it's kinda unfair to say that *all* the fun, creative, interesting house designs are in other categories, because it's certainly not the case in my experience. I think it has more to do with the skill of the designer than what category it is in. Designers like Johnny Lace and those like him I fully believe could take a cardboard box and make it into a mansion the way that Rachel Lee can make sirloin taste better with her recipes than filet mignon......LOL. Point being that you know more than anybody that generalizations are usually not 100% true.

 

[Guest]

I personally would like to see a hollistic rating system which incorporates many different methods of judging a house. Visitor time is important, and should be taken into consideration. However, I think percentage full, visitor ratings, longevity, and perhaps amount tipped, etc, should be included.

Mix all that together to come up with one number.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

I do not know how the property limit is parsed out....but if walls, windows, stairs, doors, fences and plants could be a seperate calculation, from people and objects, it would significantly improve the variation in lot design. As is is now, every skill &amp; money house is 'outdoors' with a few plants and 'rugs', and all of the fun, creative, interesting house designs are in other catagories.

[/ QUOTE ]

I take it you don't like outdoor-themed lots

. I think it's kinda unfair to say that *all* the fun, creative, interesting house designs are in other categories, because it's certainly not the case in my experience. I think it has more to do with the skill of the designer than what category it is in. Designers like Johnny Lace and those like him I fully believe could take a cardboard box and make it into a mansion the way that Rachel Lee can make sirloin taste better with her recipes than filet mignon......LOL. Point being that you know more than anybody that generalizations are usually not 100% true.

[/ QUOTE ]

Either I am not being clear enough or you are deliberately chosing to twist what I am saying.

It is about property limits.....the point at which a designer (even as famous a one as Johnny Lace), has to start sacrificing windows, doors, walls and landscaping.....the basic elements of an interesting design..... to place more objects.

Property limits is the reason 'outdoor' lots, are out doors...not because they are 'themed' designs.....but because they can not put in enough of all the necessary items for 30+ customers, other wise. That is why we end up with huge boxy parking lots for store, skill and money houses.

Clearly your standards for what constitues, 'fun' and 'creative' is much lower than mine, if you find any of these lots qualify as such.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

Property limits is the reason 'outdoor' lots, are out doors...not because they are 'themed' designs.....but because they can not put in enough of all the necessary items for 30+ customers, other wise. That is why we end up with huge boxy parking lots for store, skill and money houses.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is an opinion and an assumption, not fact, and it is an incorrect assumption. I have built outdoor lots myself and I can assure you it had nothing to do with property limits or personal sim limits......it just happens that I, and some others, actually like the idea of sitting outside in the sunshine reading a book or playing chess, or even using the 1 square 4 wall pillars to arrange decoratively for charisma, or having an outdoor chorus of guitars for creativity. I resent you saying that people who make lots that you don't care for are uimaginative and uncreative simply because you don't like them. You can say you don't like them without being so insulting, ya know.....

 

[imported_Gracie Nito]

<blockquote><hr>

I personally would like to see a hollistic rating system which incorporates many different methods of judging a house. Visitor time is important, and should be taken into consideration. However, I think percentage full, visitor ratings, longevity, and perhaps amount tipped, etc, should be included.

Mix all that together to come up with one number.

[/ QUOTE ]


I have to agree with this idea. If there has to be a ranking system then I would want it based on several different criteria and averaged together to come up with an overall score for each lot.

We all know that having the most visitor hours doesn't always mean the place is the best in town. Whether visitor hours are calculated per visitor or per capacity percentages, the fact remains that number one is not always the best.

However, if the number one house was there because....

It reached the highest overall score based on visitor hours, meals served, visitor ranking, and longevity bonus(number of days in business) then we would be more apt to actually visit a number one house.

 

[imported_Phoenix_Rising]

TTL

Also, just an idea, but how about several different top 100 lists? It would be laid out similar to that of the friendship charts, but based on different criteria. Perhaps you want to go to houses with heavy traffic, or you may want to find yourself a place that's most chatty? (This especially could help you find a non-AFK lot)

I personally don't care for the idea of letting players rank your lot on a scale from 1 to 5. This could be exploited if you slept with your ex-girlfriend's sister's sister-in-law's cousin thrice-removed who really has it out for you.

Just sayin'.

 

[imported_Gracie Nito]

I'm not sure how a chatty house could be measured except by player ratings. You defintely can't go by keystrokes while in house. Talk about easily manipulated. I don't want to visit places that are filled with adskljsdkfk, hkdfasdk, lladhksd. Every few minutes just to be logged as a chatty place. lol.